


The Noble House of Black

by remoonyblack



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Angst, F/M, Family Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:02:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29733603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remoonyblack/pseuds/remoonyblack
Summary: A non-magical au where Sirius is trapped in his family's house and the only positive thing in his life is his cousin (who's abandoning him) and his girlfriend (who he doesn't get to see much).Tw abuse
Relationships: Andromeda Black Tonks/Ted Tonks, Sirius Black/Mary Macdonald
Kudos: 3





	The Noble House of Black

**Author's Note:**

> I suppose "Daddy Issues" by The Neighbourhood fits the mood of this fic.

“You’re what!?” Sirius said loudly into his phone.  
He had recently received it as a birthday present and hadn’t missed a single chance to phone every single person he knew. Currently it was his favorite cousin Andromena, who had given him her phone number during one of their recent family gatherings.  
“You heard me,” she said on the other line. Her voice was extremely cheerful. “Ted asked me to marry him! We’re planning on leaving the country as soon as possible... I can’t wait to get away from England. Kind of feels like a prison here, doesn’t it?  
Sirius was quiet for a while.  
“So, you’re just going to leave me?”  
“Aw, Sirius… I’m not leaving you. Not forever, at least.”  
“It’s the same thing.” said Sirius angrily.  
Sirius decided that he hated Ted Tonks even more than he hated his parents. One decent family member. One decent family member was all he had, and now bloody Tonks was going to take her away from him.  
Andromena sighed. “Listen. In three years, you’ll be 18. Then you’re free to make your own choices. If you fancy, you can always come and live with me and Ted. We’re planning on moving to America. The further away, the better, eh?”  
“When are you leaving?” said Sirius quietly. Maybe if he just had a bit more time, he would be able to change her mind. What was he going to do without her? His parents loathed him, his brother was an annoying git, all his aunts and uncles wanted him dead. His cousins (besides Andromena) were horrible. Or well… he supposed that Narcissa wasn’t too bad. She wasn’t Andromena, but she was alright. Bellatrix was a whole other story.  
“Not sure about that,” said Andromena. “Ted has to quit his job first. I’m guessing a few months maybe.”  
“Okay…” said Sirius.  
“Anyway,” said Andromena. “I’ve really ought to get going now. See you soon, okay? Call if you need anything.”  
After hanging up, Sirius sat the phone back down on his bedside table and sighed heavily. He looked around in his big, empty, dark bedroom. He would have liked it to be a bit more colorful, but for some reason his mother was obsessed with depressing colors and refused to let him have his walls any other color than grey or white.  
…  
It was another day.  
Sirius was walking carelessly around the woods. He wasn’t sure how long he had been walking, but his feet were starting to hurt.  
Walburga had scolded him again, earlier. This time because he hadn’t been paying attention during the very boring history lessons. “Who even pays attention in that subject anyway?” had Sirius said bitterly. Well, of course Regulus did. Perfect little Regulus. Such a perfect son.  
Sirius wanted to throw up.  
He angrily kicked away a rock that was lying peacefully in the muddy grass. He watched it fly away and land somewhere in a bush.  
“You’re a disgrace,” Walburga said. “Be a bit more like your brother, will you?”  
And then Regulus had stood there proudly, with a smirk on his face while Orion stared at Sirius with disappointment.  
Stupid. Fucking. Family.  
“Guess who!”  
Sirius was startled as a pair of hands suddenly flung around his face, making his vision dark. If he hadn’t heard her voice, Sirius would’ve known who it was anyway. Mary’s smell was easy to recognize. She smelt like strawberries, peace, and freedom.  
Sirius smiled.  
“Mrs Robertson?”  
“No!” Mary giggled and pulled her hands away. “You’ve been meeting up with Mrs Robertson? Isn’t she like… what? sixty?”  
Sirius laughed and shook his head. “I knew it was you, Mary.”  
Mary nodded brightly. “Of course, you did! You’re so clever, you are.” She beamed up at him with her usual joy. “What’re you doing out here? Mum saw you walking around by yourself. Were you waiting for me? I’m sorry if you were… I didn’t know we had planned to meet today. I was actually just going to the market. Brought my coins and everything.” She held out her wallet. “I saw this dress last time I was there and been saving up to buy it since.”  
Sirius shook his head. “Nah, I just needed some fresh air. You can go buy your dress, don’t worry about me.”  
“Well, won’t you come with me then? You look like someone who could use some company.” Mary said. Sirius didn’t need to tell her, for her to know that there were problems with his family again. She could read him so easily. He loved that about her. Mary was the only one who really cared. That’s why he always clung to her for dear life.  
“If you insist,” Sirius grinned and held out his arm. She gladly took it and the two of them began heading for the town.  
It was a long walk there, but neither of them seemed to mind. Sometimes it was quite nice to just walk and talk.  
Sirius and Mary met up pretty often. Her house was a thirty-minute walk from Sirius’s, but he didn’t mind it. He went there whenever he needed a break from his family.  
The first time they met had been around 5 years ago when they both were ten. After having enough of his brother, Sirius ran away from home and found himself completely lost in a big dark forest. Mary and her parents had found him while on a walk and taken him to their house, so he had a place to stay the night. The next morning, Mary’s mum insisted on knowing where Sirius lived so they could take him home, but he had wanted so much to stay.  
Once he got home, his parents had been furious and given him one of his biggest punishments yet. Looking back, the memory was pretty horrid, but from then, Mary had been Sirius best friend.  
Or well, it was not like Sirius had ever had any other friends. The only people he really knew was his family and the other wealthy kids that sometimes came over at parties and such, but they were all idiots.  
Mary’s family was quite different from Sirius’s. He disliked her mum a great deal, that he had to admit, but at least she didn’t punish Mary when she messed up. They weren’t that rich either, not that they were poor because they definitely weren’t, but compared to the Black family they might’ve been. They lived in an ordinary home, wore ordinary clothes and Mary even attended a public school.  
She had a great deal of friends, Sirius knew. She talked about them often. There were too many to really keep track on, but they all sounded lovely. Sirius often got jealous when she mentioned her other friends. Especially her male friends.  
“Is this it?” Sirius asked. They had reached town and stopped by the shop that Mary had been talking about and they were looking for a specific dress that she wanted to buy. She had described it the best she could so Sirius could help looking.  
She shook her head so that her brown ponytail swung from side to side. “No, but I think it might be over here… Right! Here it is.”  
The dress was beautiful, Sirius thought. Light blue with a pretty flowery pattern. It would suit her a lot.  
“Oh bummer,” Mary frowned as she looked down at the prize. “I’m a few coins short.”  
Sirius leaned over and looked too, then smirked. “I’ll pay.”  
“You don’t have to,” said Mary and looked up at him with bright eyes. He knew that she wanted him to buy it and was just trying to be polite.  
He laughed and shook his head. Being a Black, Sirius was ridiculously rich. He didn’t need all that money, so he was glad he could at least buy his girlfriend nice things.  
“Consider it an early valentine’s day gift,” he said as they were leaving the shop hand in hand.  
“Valentine’s day isn’t even close,” Mary giggled. “But thank you anyway.”  
They stopped by at a café. Sirius bought a brownie and a cup of hot chocolate for both of them.  
“You could consider this a spontaneous date,” said Mary as they were seated in front of each other in a private corner. She smiled shyly up at Sirius.  
He smiled back. “I suppose it is, isn’t it? It feels good to be away from the tossers that call themselves my family.”  
“Want to talk about it?”  
Sirius shook his head. He wasn’t in the mood to talk about his family. He would rather just enjoy the fact that he was away from them. Mary nodded, understanding.  
They spend a long time in that Café. Mostly Mary was talking freely about whatever came to her mind. That girl could talk for hours, but Sirius didn’t try to stop her. He just listened patiently and tried to get a few words in now and then. After they had spent twenty minutes, snogging in the bathroom of the café, Mary said that her parents would begin to worry soon and that she needed to go home now.  
Sirius wasn’t too fond, but he couldn’t stay out forever.  
…  
“Sirius Orion Black, I am not going to say this again. Come down here this instant!” Walburga shouted, but Sirius continued to ignore it.  
“What would you do in my situation, Sirius?” said Mary from the phone. They had been talking all morning, basically and the fact that today was his mother’s birthday and that his whole family were gathered downstairs to celebrate was the least of Sirius concerns. If she was going to punish him later on, then so be it.  
“I’d probably just tell her to bugger off.” Sirius responded. He could hear Mary sigh on the other line.  
“That’ll only make it worse. Honestly, if she could just stop being so damn jealous of me. It feels like all the girls in my class hates me just because I’m pretty.”  
He wanted to laugh. “I think you’ll survive, don’t you?”  
“You don’t understand... Lucky you. I wish I could be homeschooled too.”  
“It’s not as great as you think. Trust me.”  
“Sounds fine to me. You don’t constantly have to deal with teenage drama.”  
Sirius didn’t respond. He would much rather deal with ‘teenage drama’ than his bloody family, but alright.  
“Anyway,” said Mary after a minute of silence. “Dad got me an interesting book yesterday. It’s about myths. If you come over some time, I could show you.”  
“Sure,”  
“According to it, vampires might actually exist.”  
“Sound pretty bonkers.”  
“Well, I s’pose. It’s a good read though.”  
“Yeah.”  
His mother’s yelling had stopped. This was good. Maybe she had finally given up. A few moments later he heard a knock on his door. He told Mary to hold on and got up from the bed, heading over to open up the door. He was hoping to see Andromena on the other side. She was the only other person that he really felt like talking to.  
Regulus popped his head inside and Sirius felt disappointed. “Your room stinks.” he commented. “Mum is pretty mad. You’d probably want to come down.”  
Sirius rolled his eyes and his little brother who soon left the room and went downstairs again.  
“You still there?”  
“Of course!” Mary said. “Was that little Reggie? What did he want?”  
“There’s a family thing downstairs,” Sirius said. “He told me to come.”  
“Oh, yes obviously.” said Mary. “Have fun.”  
“Doubt I will,” said Sirius. “I’ll call you later though, okay?”  
“Yes, that’ll work. Bye, Sirius. Love you.”  
“Bye.”  
He hung up and sat on his bed for a while. He needed a moment to mentally prepare before going down. Usually it wouldn’t be too bad, since he had Andromena, but he was still angry with her and had decided to ignore her until she finally gave in and changed her mind about leaving. He wasn’t sure if this strategy would work, but he didn’t have any others.  
His whole family was gathered in the party hall of the manor, looking rather tense. When Sirius joined, Walburga sent him a sharp look which he couldn’t read.  
One would imagine a big family gathering like this to be happy and full of warmth, but oh no it was quite the opposite. If anyone else were to look into the room, Sirius was sure that the only word they could use to describe the Black family was ‘dark’.  
He supposed it fit their last name well.  
The only empty seat at the table was between Narcissa and her father Cygnus Black. Sirius sat down slowly, and soon realized that all the angry stares weren’t directed at him. But at Andromena.  
“What’s going on?” he said silently to Narcissa.  
“Andromena has gone mad.” was all she said, staring at her sister wide-eyed.  
Cygnus was the first to speak after a long painful silence. “Out of all the people you could marry. You choose Ted Tonks?!”  
Andromena held her father’s gaze coldly. “Yes, dad. I love him.”  
“You—”  
Narcissa flinched at her father’s harsh tone.  
“You are no daughter of mine.”  
The next second, Sirius watched as his uncle stood up and stormed out of the room with range. Andromena gulped, but she refused to look ashamed. Sirius adored her a lot in that moment.  
“Look what you’ve done!” screamed Bellatrix once her father had left. “I told you to just drop it, Andromena.”  
“Bella… I’ve already made my decision.”  
“You could have at least chosen another time to announce it. You’ve ruined poor Walburga’s party. Oh, dear I’m so sorry.”  
Bellatrix was the youngest of the three sisters, but by far the most annoying one. Sirius hated her the most. She was simply horrible. And worst of all, she loved sucking up to Walburga.  
Sirius’s mum didn’t respond, but simply stared ahead.  
“Right,” said Orion. “I suppose the party ends here then.”  
He stood up from the table and so did the others. Sirius was just glad that it was over already.  
The goodbyes were quite awkward. Narcissa gave Sirius a huge kiss on the cheek, leaving him blushing madly but the others simply ignored him after saying goodbye to his brother and parents. Bellatrix went as far as to give him a very nasty glare. He hadn’t even done anything this time.  
Andromena was given the cold shoulder by everyone. Walburga and Orion didn’t even acknowledge her before she was halfway out of the door where Orion told her very firmly to “Never step foot in my house ever again.”  
“Wait!” called Sirius just as Andromena was about to enter her car. Narcissa and Bellatrix had already left, apparently terribly upset with their sister. Andromena smiled sadly at Sirius.  
“It’s done,” she said as he caught up to her. “I’m finally free.”  
Sirius frowned. “They all hate you now.”  
“As if they didn’t before,” she chuckled. Then she stroked his hair softly. “I’m not leaving you, Sirius. Not forever.”  
Sirius looked down. Once he was old enough to make his own decisions, he would follow Andromena’s footsteps and break out of his terrible family.  
“Okay. Goodbye then.”  
Andromena hugged him tightly and drove away. Sirius suddenly felt very empty.  
He was going back to his room. He had promised Mary that he would call her once the family thing was over, and he’d only been away for around 10 minutes so he knew she would answer the phone. He needed something to distract his mind. Maybe he could ask her if it would be alright to visit tomorrow. Take a look at that book she mentioned.  
“Stop it right there,”  
Sirius felt a strong, firm hand on his shoulder. He looked up and stared into his father’s cold eyes.  
“What was all that about huh?”  
Sirius frowned. “What was what about…?”  
“Don’t play smart with me, kid.”  
And then Orion proceeded to scream at his son, apparently haven chosen that Sirius was the right person to let the anger out on. First it was because he had been absent for most his mother’s party, then because he had talked to Andromena outside and suddenly he was being yelled at because his hair wasn’t styled properly.  
Sirius catched the eye of Regulus who let out a snort as their father furiously began dissing his hair. He could see the funny part, really and he did try to hold in the laughter. But the sight of Orion Black, completely red in the face, screaming as loudly as his throat would let him about every possible thing that was wrong with Sirius was enough to make him laugh. It was a very tiny, small laugh. He could have possibly disguised it as a cough, or a cry even, but then Regulus started giggling and it all just sort of crashed.  
Orion stopped yelling. His eyes were so sharp that Sirius thought that if looks could kill; he would have just died twice.  
And Sirius stopped laughing at once because he knew what was coming next.  
SMACK!  
…  
A few hours later, Sirius weakly made his way back to his room. It was a hard journey up the stairs, but he managed.  
He watched himself in the mirror. He had a huge hand-shaped red mark across his cheek and the same around his neck. It still hurt, but he tried to ignore the pain and he forced the tears back. It’s not like he hadn’t seen it coming. If he had just been a bit more careful… He let out a pathetic cough.  
“No food for three days and you’re not allowed to leave the house.” was what Walburga had told him.  
Well then… Sirius supposed he wouldn’t be seeing Mary tomorrow anyway. But he could still talk to her.  
With shaking hands, he dialed her number. It rang and he waited patiently, but she didn’t answer. He rang again and this time he anxiously started rocking back and forth.  
Sirius needed to hear a friendly voice before he could properly fall asleep.  
“Please answer…” he muttered at his third try. Still no answer.  
Giving up, he placed the phone on his bedside table and lay down, staring up at the ceiling. He would try again when he woke up, he thought.  
He was looking forward to it.


End file.
